This one should be obvious, but it bears repeating: Never go to the gym on January 2nd. I mean, unless you enjoy the overnight tripling in membership and fighting for the last treadmill in an epic battle that makes your workout unnecessary.
I think I would be too embarrassed to join a gym in January. It's like admitting that you just can't take any more badgering from every media outlet and office conversation and goddamn P.A. system at the grocery store. The endless cycle of drivel that run from November through January is enough to make plenty of us crack, though.
It starts in before Thanksgiving with the onslaught of stories in the newspaper (and on the radio and the Internet and TV and magazines and anywhere else your eyeballs may stray during this time) with oh-so-original titles like "Tips and Tricks To Avoid Those Holiday Pounds!". (For the record, having read or skimmed more or less this exact article an estimated 12,093,823 times since learning to read, let me sum it up for you: "Eat an apple or some nuts BEFORE you go to that dinner party--you don't want to be hungry for the food you will be served! Drink plenty of water--it will fill you up! Don't stand by the table where the food is--too tempting! Skip the mini-meatballs and fill up on the veggie tray instead--but don't you dare have any of that ranch dip!" Oh, and the ever-popular, "Take the stairs instead of the elevator! And park at the far end of the shopping mall when you're fighting those holiday crowds!") So simple!
This article is followed by the classic, "Oh My God Did You Realize How Many Calories Are in a Single Piece of Fudge" genre, which takes over by mid-December. The day after Christmas, though, the party's over. "Best Ways To Take Off Those Holiday Pounds That You Could Have Prevented If You'd Just Read the November Article" stories dominate until New Year's Eve, when the focus switches to "How To Finally Stick To Your Resolutions and Lose Those Holiday Pounds".
Frankly, it's exhausting and more than a little insulting. Bill O'Reilly may think that secular liberals are waging a war on Christmas, but I'm here to tell him that the Weight Loss Industry is one of the primary movers behind turning November, December and January into a celebration of deprivation and its reaction, over-indulgence, followed by guilt and "redemption".
How about if we all just gave ourselves a collective break? If we said, "This is the year I am not going to obsess about each and every calorie that goes into my mouth and instead am going to listen to my body and enjoy the food I want." If we looked at the gym and activity in general not as "punishment" for our "sins" but as a time to enjoy how our bodies work. If, overall, we just took morality right out of the question.
Food is neither good nor evil. It's...food. Those who exercise are not virtuous. They're moving their bodies. For myself, eating a wide variety of mostly unprocessed foods and getting regular exercise makes me feel good.
It just doesn't make me good.